{"id":470444,"date":"2026-03-11T23:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/470444\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:09:09","slug":"microsofts-xbox-mode-is-coming-to-every-windows-11-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/470444\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u2019s \u2018Xbox mode\u2019 is coming to every Windows 11 PC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Microsoft seems more determined than ever to combine Xbox and Windows \u2014 to the point that its next-gen Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/games\/890194\/microsoft-teases-its-next-xbox-says-project-helix-will-play-pc-games-too\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will play PC games too.<\/a> Today, we learned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/games\/893119\/xbox-project-helix-jason-ronald-gdc-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Helix will go alpha in 2027<\/a>. But the company isn\u2019t waiting for Helix before it points Windows gamers in the Xbox direction. Starting in April, it\u2019s bringing its full-screen Xbox mode to every kind of Windows 11 PC, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. And it\u2019s renamed it \u201cXbox mode.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">But if Microsoft is putting its full weight behind PC as the future of Xbox gaming, perhaps that will change. It certainly hasn\u2019t stopped updating the Xbox Ally; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/games\/843010\/xbox-ally-x-sleep-battery-drain-two-months-later\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the pricier version now feels downright reliable<\/a>, which is not something I\u2019ve generally accused Windows handhelds of before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Here at the 2026 Game Developers Conference, Microsoft also says it\u2019s opening up <a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/directx\/introducing-advanced-shader-delivery\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Advanced Shader Delivery<\/a> to all developers in the Xbox store, letting them speed up game load times by sending precompiled shaders when you download games there. (I\u2019ve heard it\u2019s a common technique on consoles, and Valve offers precompiled shaders with Steam.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">If you consider yourself technical, you may want to check out <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.windows.com\/windowsdeveloper\/?p=57711\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft\u2019s blog post<\/a> for more GDC announcements, including updates to DirectX (moving toward neural rendering), DirectStorage (faster moving game assets for quicker load times) and graphics debugging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft seems more determined than ever to combine Xbox and Windows \u2014 to the point that its next-gen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[205,59,696,16332,227,86,56,54,55,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-470444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-gaming","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-microsoft","11":"tag-pc-gaming","12":"tag-tech","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom","17":"tag-xbox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}